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Ray Rice’s Reputation in The Internet’s Hands After Elevator Video

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WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – The video of Ray Rice dragging his fiancé out of a casino elevator in Atlantic City, after allegedly striking her and knocking her unconscious, evokes a disturbing level of intrigue, which explains why it’s been circulating the internet the last 24 hours.

Rice and his fiancé, Janay Palmer, were both arrested and charged with simple assault-domestic violence, after an argument at Revel Casino in Atlantic City early Saturday morning.

As the Junkies discussed on 106.7 The Fan on Thursday, it’s difficult, after watching the surveillance footage of Rice extricating Palmer’s limp body from the elevator, to ever imagine Rice in the same honorable light as he was once viewed – the fun Baltimore Ravens running back with a magnetic smile.

However, this domestic issue is really no different from any of the many others involving NFL players, as Junkies producer Drab T-Shirt astutely observed.

“The video’s whoring Ray Rice,” Drab said. “Because this happens all the time in the NFL and it’s just a minor headline. This is really sticking with you and probably a lot of other people, because they can visualize him hitting that woman and knocking her out with his fist.”

“I remember reading about [Terrell] Suggs. I’ll be honest with you, this is what a hypocrite I am,” EB said. “I remember reading about it and going, ‘Well, we had him on the show. He was really good.’ I’m being honest with you! And I didn’t have the video to accompany it, so I can easily compartmentalize it.”

Suggs was accused by Candace Williams — the mother of his children who he later married — in Nov. 2012, of punching Williams in the neck and dragging her alongside a car he was driving, while their two children sat inside, according to Pro Football Talk.

“But when you see the video, and then you see the story, and then you read “uppercut” and you see, ‘Oh my God look at her, she’s knocked out cold,’ it’s like, how can you not have the same conclusion?” EB said.

It’s true, and it’s perhaps more a sign of the times that video of alleged domestic abuse could be made available to the public with such immediacy, forcing us to acknowledge that someone we once held as a hero in our hearts, for football reasons, may not actually be so off the field.

When has it ever been okay for a man to hit a woman, for any reason?

It hasn’t, but for the countless other NFL players or professional athletes of other sports, or anyone in the public eye whom we hold in high regard, for that matter — who have been accused of domestic violence — never before have they faced such a threat of technology meeting the internet with such immediacy and accessibility to the public.

It’s always prudent to allow matters, especially such private matters, to play out in the court system before forming an opinion.

But when video footage of an incident, paired with eyewitness accounts, can hit the internet faster than police can fill out and subsequently disseminate a report, our heroes better be on high alert — whether in public, or in their homes.